


In Another Life

by Renne



Category: Captain America (2011), Marvel 616
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fluff, Id Fic, M/M, Made For Each Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-03
Updated: 2012-09-03
Packaged: 2017-11-13 11:23:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/503002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/pseuds/Renne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Steve & Bucky meet three times and the last time is for good. Utterly self-indulgent, hand-wavey fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Another Life

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://peterquills.tumblr.com/post/19564309498) as a kind of "this is how they got there" before the happily ever after.

The first time they meet is when they're both seventeen. It's a casual thing, almost like an accident. Steve's still trying to figure out whether he wants to study to get a real job or blow it into the wind and go to art school. Bucky's spinning his wheels, passing time until the Army takes him.  
  
It's just another day, wholly unremarkable, and Steve's wandered off the beaten track. He sits at a table at a little tea house where Bucky's finishing up his shift, Steve his last customer. Bucky serves him, enamoured of his side-parted hair and blue, blue eyes. Steve likes the way the old t-shirt Bucky wears sits across his shoulders and the way his hand brushes against Steve's when he sets down Steve's cup.  
  
Steve says "Hi," and tries not to blush.  
  
When Bucky's shift ends he stays and they talk. Two Brooklyn boys, both orphaned, similar but so different. Afterwards, Bucky takes Steve back to his room and etches himself deep into Steve's heart, while Steve fills the hollow spaces in his own.  
  
The next day Bucky ships off to basic training and Steve chooses his art over stability.  
  
That was the first time they met.  
  
  
  
The second time they meet is an accident. They also don't meet as such, but the effect is the same.  
  
Steve has just turned 21 and is struggling with an accounting degree and a part-time job. He volunteers in the spare time he shouldn't have to do things for friends and their family. He blows off classes and takes his elderly neighbour to the VA hospital to visit her grandson, who was injured in Iraq.  
  
Steve doesn't know anyone called James Buchanan Barnes, but he remembers a boy called Bucky who went away to join the army and left a fragment of himself safe in Steve's memory.  
  
No, Steve doesn't know James Buchanan Barnes, the poor soul in the next bed, who doesn't respond to any of the treatments.  
  
And Bucky, deep in his medicated stupor, stirs at the sound of voices, not quite awake, not quite asleep. Something familiar catches and holds him, strung there in the inbetween, something warm and comforting.  
  
The next day he starts to get better. Maybe it's not an accident.  
  
That was the second time they met.  
  
  
  
The third time they meet, Steve's working himself into an early grave and Bucky's at a loose end.  
  
Steve's off the beaten track at a bookshop cafe he's never been to before; it's tiny and it's out of the way, there's no risk of running into any of his colleagues, no need to force good cheer and make small talk that's beyond him right now.  
  
Inside is Bucky, finishing up his shift, Steve his last customer. His head hurts and his arm aches, but he only dropped two cups today and neither landed on a customer so he counts it as a good day. (His boss is kind with him, he's been lucky like that. It helps that she's his best friend too, of course.)  
  
Steve sits at a table outside, loosening the tie around his neck that feels like a noose and setting his briefcase by his feet. He doesn't look up when he places his order and Bucky's too tired to do any more than glance at the golden head bowed over the Wall Street Journal. Too tired to appreciate broad shoulders under a well-tailored jacket (but something flickers like a candle in the back of his mind at the timbre of the man's voice).  
  
Steve is the one who looks up instead, eyes catching on a sharp jawline, the curl of dark hair as his waiter turns away, heads back inside. Steve's reminded of a tea house and a warm bed and a boy he sees in pencil lines and charcoal shadings, features recurring again and again. Then the waiter is gone inside and Steve, well, he figures he'll see when the waiter comes back out just how wrongly the shadows lie in his face and how much Steve is deluding himself.  
  
Bucky has to concentrate to keep his tired fingers firm on the saucer in his hand (the cup chitters against the saucer, the surface of the liquid trembling with the movement) as he pushes the door open with his good hand. Then he looks up and stops in his tracks. Steve stares back, mouth open in shock and Bucky thinks, oh look at him, and he thinks, he looks so tired, and he thinks, lastly and stupidly,  _I haven't dropped the cup_. (And that's what he'll tell others, years from now. "I didn't drop the cup," said with a fierce pride.)  
  
Steve half-starts out of his seat, Bucky's name on his lips. They're nothing to each other. They're nothing.  
  
But.  
  
"I thought you joined the army," Steve says foolishly, sitting down again.  
  
"I thought you went to art school," is Bucky's retort as he finally sets the cup on the table.  
  
Steve reaches out and touches Bucky's hand and Bucky goes rock-still. No one but the doctors at DARPA have touched his hand or arm for longer than he realises (god, he aches with how much he's missed being touched) and Steve's gaze flicks down to Bucky's hand. Steve doesn't know what the extensive scarring is from, but guesses it's probably connected to the reason why Bucky's here and not still toting a gun for his country in Iraq. He slides his fingers across Bucky's then around so he's holding his hand, holding the hand of a complete stranger he knew for one night as a boy.  
  
But it feels right.  
  
Bucky makes a tiny noise and the tension floods out of him. He sinks into the chair, unable to take his eyes from Steve's face. "What happened?" Steve asks softly, like he has the right to ask, finger on his opposite hand trailing up the inside of Bucky's wrist, following the line of a scar that disappears under the cuff of his shirt.  
  
"IED. Nearly four years ago."  
  
"Oh. I'm sorry--"  
  
"I used to dream of you," Bucky blurts. "When I was in hospital, I used to dream of you and it--I dunno, I just... it felt like you were there. And when it felt like that it--it helped, I think." And he thinks, this is crazy, I sound  _crazy_ , except Steve's looking at him like he's just hung the moon.  
  
Steve knows he should say something to that, something serious, because it might possibly be the sweetest, most outrageously impossible thing anyone has ever said to him, but instead he says, "You have no idea how badly I want to kiss you right now."  
  
It's a reversal of the first time, Bucky saying the words with all the seriousness of a seventeen year old, leaning in almost before he'd even finished speaking. The table this time isn't tiny enough that they could just lean over and kiss, but--  
  
Steve slips out of his chair, fingers still curled into Bucky's and slides his fingers around Bucky's nape, stooping to kiss him. It's like they've kissed a hundred times, a thousand times. It's like the first time. Steve whines softly in the back of his throat when Bucky's tongue slides against his, when Bucky pushes up out of his chair without breaking the kiss and presses against him, fingers caught in the front of his jacket.  
  
Eventually Bucky pulls back a little. "Come back to my place," he murmurs and smiles against Steve's mouth, an echo of seven years ago. When Steve says softly,  _no_ , he's surprised. God, maybe Steve has someone he needs to go home to, Bucky hadn't even thought--  
  
"Hey, hey," Steve says, tightening his grip when Bucky tries to ease away. "I just meant... I want you to come back to mine. Instead." Bucky stills immediately and Steve smiles tentatively. "Yeah?"  
  
Bucky's sudden smile is like sunshine and Steve finds himself grinning stupidly back at him. "Yeah."  
  
Steve's place is a half-hour train-ride from the cafe, he says, and when Bucky heads back inside to throw his apron in the wash and pick up his stuff his boss looks at him with a raised brow. "Friend?" she asks.  
  
"Nope."  
  
" _Boy_ friend?"  
  
Bucky grins at her. "Nope."  
  
She scowls good-naturedly at his flippancy. "That wasn't exactly a nothing kiss. How do you know him?"  
  
"From five minutes a lifetime ago, Nat." Bucky shrugs into his jacket and leans forward, kissing her on the cheek. "I'll be good, I promise."  
  
She raises a brow and musses his hair and he knows she's thinking about the other times he's let strangers take him home. "Don't be good, be  _safe_. You've got my number and Pepper's too just in case--"  
  
"Nothing's gonna go wrong," he says, "not this time. I got a good feeling about this."  
  
"You've said that before--"  
  
"Shh." He touches her lips with his finger then his mouth. "You'll see." He slides his wallet into his back pocket. "I'll text," he says, "to let you know everything is going okay. You want pictures too?"  
  
Nat crinkles her nose but she smiles because his good cheer is contagious (and she's never seen him this happy before, and it's _good_ ). "Nothing x-rated."  
  
"Not even something tastefully x-rated? He's an artist."  
  
She leans to look past him. Steve is framed by the doorway and he smiles and waves awkwardly. She smirks and waves back. "He looks like an accountant. Cute, but an accountant."  
  
Steve's grip on the briefcase handle is clammy, because he thinks this red-haired woman who clearly means the world to Bucky can make or break this, except then she pushes Bucky towards the door, towards him, and Bucky goes.  
  
And only stops when he's inside Steve's personal space. "You ready?"  
  
Steve nods and Bucky stays close to him all the way to the train station. When he feels Bucky's scarred fingers lace through his as they sit together on the train, Steve can't help his dopey smile. He tries not to look so smitten when he glances at Bucky except Bucky's looking back at him just as giddily and he can't help it, leaning in to kiss him lingeringly. He doesn't care who sees them. He's happy. He hasn't been happy since he ditched art school to pay the bills.  
  
And Bucky's happy too. It makes no sense, he doesn't believe in fate or destiny or meant to be. Yet this...  
  
Steve expects to be nervous when he ushers Bucky into his apartment, except it feels like coming home the way it's never felt before. He should be scared by how normal it feels, how natural it is when Bucky turns, smiles at him and reaches past to close the door, taking the case from Steve with his other hand and dropping it carelessly to the side.  
  
Steve cups Bucky's face and kisses him, first sweet, then deeper. Bucky wraps his arms around Steve, and god, he's muscle, all muscle under the suit jacket and shirt and Bucky makes a noise of delight against Steve's mouth. It's a quick step from the door to the bed, Bucky shrugging out of his jacket and peeling Steve out his.  
  
He pushes Steve down onto the bed, straddling him. Steve's settles his hands on Bucky's hips and can't help his sharp inhale as Bucky looks down at him, mouth curving into a sly smile as he hooks his fingers under the hem of his t-shirt, slowly peeling it off.  
  
"My god," Steve breathes when he sees the ink on Bucky's skin. "How...?" His fingers tremble as he traces the black lines, tattooed over the careful Sharpie lines Steve had drawn seven years earlier.  
  
"I carried a part of you with me, always. Is that... okay?" Bucky asks hesitantly, unable to interpret the look on Steve's face, the concentration, the slight furrow between his eyes. Steve's eyes widen at the question and he laughs, tipping Bucky to the side, moving over him. He presses his mouth to the tattoo, and the touch of his lips makes Bucky shudder. He coaxes Bucky over until he's laying on his stomach, sweeping his hand over the curve of his back, following the lines of ink and scarring with his mouth.  
  
"You were my best work," Steve says, shrugging out of his shirt. "I'm... completely overwhelmed." He kisses the tiny halo at the base of Bucky's neck that he'd finished his canvas with years before.  
  
Bucky runs his fingers down Steve's belly and lower, to where he can feel the hard line of Steve's cock behind the wool of his trousers. "Oh, I can tell." He laughs when Steve groans.  
  
He can't keep his hands and mouth off Bucky's skin, pushing against Bucky's hand. "I want--"  
  
"Yeah, I do too," Bucky says. The first time they were together they'd been as boys, fumbling with each other in clumsy, nervous laughter. This time, as men, there's laughter but no nerves as Steve peels Bucky out of his jeans and then wriggles out of his own trousers. They tumble together on the bed, all skin on skin.  
  
Bucky's slept with a dozen different guys, but this, with Steve, he's like lightning under his skin. No, he doesn't believe in fate, but he's starting to come around to the idea that maybe sometimes people are made for each other.  
  
Steve presses his mouth to Bucky's spine and his slicked fingers into Bucky's body (and he's always remembered the noises Bucky makes, but it's better now, because it's here and it's now). "C'mon, don't fuck around," Bucky gasps, pressing back against Steve's fingers. "I can take it. I want--nnngh--more,  _fuck_ \--"  
  
Steve is shaking as flips Bucky over, as he rolls on the condom and slicks his cock, as he slowly slides into Bucky. He doesn't think he's ever been so turned on before in his life, and as he settles himself, as Bucky hooks his legs around Steve's waist and makes the most obscene noise of pleasure, he feels like he could come at any moment. Except Bucky holds Steve there, still inside him for a long, long moment, eyes closed and content. Then he guides Steve's face to his, kissing him deeply and Steve slides his hands up Bucky's arms, tugging them up above his head. He breaks the kiss to press his lips to the white and pink lines that crisscross the inside of Bucky's arm and wonders if it's too soon to tell Bucky he's in love.  
  
Later, after they've showered, after they've fucked again, and the city outside the windows is nothing but lights against a black sky, Steve says, "Move in with me," his lips a whispered caress across the curve of Bucky's collarbone.  
  
"What? You're crazy, Steve, we don't even know each other--"  
  
"I don't care. Move in with me."  
  
(The third time they meet, Bucky comes back to Steve's place with him and he never leaves.)


End file.
